Raised in his mind Aeneas floated apart

Achates with him was bound in mist

Longing to break from his ambient cloud

Achates urged him to join the crowd

How Orontes paid fortune in death

How nineteen ships came here to rest

.

Achates words broke the spell

Mists trailing upwards in a swell

Aeneas suddenly in open sight

His face like ivory polished white

Serene of eye no longer lost in maze

His golden hair like the sun’s rays

In new youth from the cloud he woke

[With grave modesty spoke]

.

This man by storm lost

Saved from drowning by your coast

Stands before your just throne

With the relics of our ruined home

Queen of this fortunate land

Queen of our Fate-hounded band

Strangers to you are borne

Where else they meet scorn

Gods favor the good deed

And we stand here in need

As a smile forms from a frown

You this savage age transform

So long as rivers run to the sea

So long as the sun lights the day

So long as trees reach for the sky

Your blessed name shall never die

Whatever I suffer under Fate unkind

Your fair face shall rise ever in my mind

.

Aeneas restrained further words

Turning to his lost underlords

Gracing Ilioneus with his right hand

Sergestus with his left hand

Cloanthus and Gyas he took to his breast

Gyas he so pressed

And graciously descended among the rest

End 19

Notes

While the great figures of world religions: Moses, Zoroaster, Jesus and Mohamed have been credited with reaching an understanding with divinity on behalf of their folk via a period of seclusion upon a mountain or in some other isolating place, lesser figures such as Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Jason, Herakles and Aeneas are often isolated from the collective mind and consciousness of their people via a direct intercession by the supernatural. Aeneas period of mist-shrouding may be in the tradition of Odin’s disguise among mortals or simply reflect a period of internal reflection and social reclusion.